Lamentations 4:3-12

New Century Version

³ Even wild dogs give their milk
    to feed their young,
but my people are cruel
    like ostriches in the desert.

⁴ The babies are so thirsty
    their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths.
Children beg for bread,
    but no one gives them any.

⁵ Those who once ate fine foods
    are now starving in the streets.
People who grew up wearing nice clothes
    now pick through trash piles.

⁶ My people have been punished
    more than Sodom was.
Sodom was destroyed suddenly,
    and no hands reached out to help her.

⁷ Our princes were purer than snow,
    and whiter than milk.
Their bodies were redder than rubies;
    they looked like sapphires.

⁸ But now they are blacker than coal,
    and no one recognizes them in the streets.
Their skin hangs on their bones;
    it is as dry as wood.

⁹ Those who were killed in the war were better off
    than those killed by hunger.
They starve in pain and die,
    because there is no food from the field.

¹⁰ With their own hands kind women
    cook their own children.
They became food
    when my people were destroyed.

¹¹ The Lord turned loose all of his anger;
    he poured out his strong anger.
He set fire to Jerusalem,
    burning it down to the foundations.

¹² Kings of the earth and people of the world
    could not believe
that enemies and foes
    could enter the gates of Jerusalem.